


Wings of a Dove

by lesbianferrissbueller



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1910s, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angel Sex, Angel Wings, Angel!Billy, Blood and Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Innocence, Loneliness, M/M, Magical Realism, Roses, Tenderness, birdcages, cuts and scrapes dw, no gore tho just like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25031242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianferrissbueller/pseuds/lesbianferrissbueller
Summary: When Steve’s parents told him they’d gotten some rare creature in that the children in town were calling a Winged Boy, he was only slightly surprised.And for some reason, the information seemed to stir him more so than his parents. As if the words they said didn't affect them that much. As if maybe they thought it was all some sort of joke that they could possibly have a boy with wings, be that what he was or not.It might just be a very large bird.Steve felt the curiosity of his youth seeping back into his skin as he asked, “Like, feathered wings?”
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 65
Kudos: 138





	1. le coup de foudre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannahhsolo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahhsolo/gifts), [FlashMountain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlashMountain/gifts).



> in four parts :)
> 
> this is for han because she was there at like 3am when i came up with it in an only mildly drugged state and has been absolutely indispensable the whole way through 
> 
> idk why i did this but its been a long time coming and it makes me feel nice to write, like drinking tea! or eating turkish delight if u know what thats like. 
> 
> hope u enjoy!
> 
> playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/76tdFY32I6U9h2cDCbkzox?si=VCT0HeDLRzmgya5w8OP4RQ
> 
> pin board: https://pin.it/KIp74op
> 
> title is from Wings of a Dove by Madness

Steve Harrington will tell his grandchildren that the white feather he keeps wrapped in a handkerchief in an old cigar box is from an angel, but none of them will believe him. They’ll tell him it’s just a story he made up to keep them entertained. After a while, he’ll believe them. 

It’s just a story. 

When Steve was nineteen he was still living at his parents manor in Long Island. And he wasn't bored, necessarily, not aimless, not unhappy. 

He was just alone. 

Maybe a little aimless. A little bored. 

A little unhappy.

He would play polo with his father’s friends on the green, or he’d go into town to have lunch with his mother’s friends and their various children. His age. Supposed to be friends- but friends always just meant contacts. He’d walk the halls of their massive house by the sea, walk the gardens, but nothing ever really interested him enough to pursue. 

Not since he’d been forbade from going to the aviary. 

The Harringtons were the sort of people with enough money to invent pastimes, at whatever expense to anyone else. 

So since before Steve could remember, his parents had collected rare and exotic birds to have on display at the west end of their sprawling gardens. He didn't know when his parents had begun their collection, just that however massive it was there always seemed to be more- Peacocks and flamingos and doves and parrots and toucans and birds of paradise and macaws and pheasants to name just a few. There was also a koi pond. 

When Steve was a boy, he named all of them, each time a new bird came in. He personally would go through and care for most of them, the staff assigned to feed and clean out each cage rather loathed to do the job. But he loved it. 

When he was younger he would follow the veterinarian around when he’d come to call, watch him practice his craft enough that once a dove broke its wing and Steve had managed to set it. 

It had healed well as new. 

His parents would rather his passions lie behind something that made more money than doting on fowl, however. 

Four years prior they had asked him to kindly refrain from ‘wasting time.’

He had more important things to be doing.

Steve doesn't remember what exactly he was up to the night the storm happened, just that he woke up in the dead of night because his window has been blown open, rain spewing onto the guided tile floors and cold wind was threatening to tear through his skin to his very bones. 

He got out of bed, the now-freezing tile burning against his feet. 

It was much too cold for May. A strike of lighting far off over the sea illuminated the room. 

Steve managed to wrestle back the curtains and frame and fastening of the window, shutting out the whistle and thrash of the stormy sky. But the floor was still wet. He supposed he could leave that till morning anyway. 

And he tried not to think about how frightened the birds probably were at this moment, with only the glass of the indoor aviary to keep them safe from the rain. The thunder would scare them more. 

But he got back in bed, tried to go back to sleep. 

He wasn't supposed to care about things like that anymore.

Often, strange alterations would be made to the aviary. New space had to be made whenever any new company was added. So Steve thought nothing of it at first when out over the garden he could see a large gilded cage being erected from its many half-assembled pieces at the open arched center of the aviary. 

But over the next few days, he would stop at the edge of the gardens and stare, because however much gold wire and bar that came in there always seemed to be more. 

And a door. 

A massive, gold metal door with patterns and errant stylized spirals and fleur de lis and dimensional petaled roses and a padlock the size of Steve’s hand. 

A person could fit through that door. 

It took all of Steve’s might not to ask about the cage, not to go out into the gardens to look for himself. But he didn't. He did what he’d been asked to, and stayed in good company in the house or by himself mostly and did one ‘smart’ thing after another until he thought the curiosity had been squashed. Until lunch one afternoon. 

Steve was taking a late lunch with his parents on the west patio when there was a crash from across the garden. Steve realized belatedly he’d heard a car pull up, a larger carriage attached, and now the door to it was open and workmen were shouting and a sound Steve recognized well knocked through the air, the kicking up of dust and beating of feathers- like a struggling bird. 

A flash of white over the hedgerows. 

Steve’s father called one of his attendants over to ask what all the commotion was. 

“Sorry, sir. It’s the new addition. Putting up a bit of a fight.”

“As long as they get it in that goddamn cage.” Steve’s father replied, straightening his newspaper. “I paid good money for that thing.”

A cry echoed across the sun-whitened green of the garden:

_ “It fucking bit me!” _

Steve asked about it as casually as he could at dinner. 

But side note, I feel I must explain this was back in the day when things like wing-ed boys and spells to make a good harvest and the occasional talking animal were, while no longer commonplace, not unheard of. One might have an uncle that fell in love with a ghost in the woods or an aunt who spent all her money on a truth-revealing mirror or that sort of thing. 

So when Steve’s parents told him they’d gotten some rare creature in that the children in town were calling a Winged Boy, he was only slightly surprised. 

And for some reason, the information seemed to stir him more so than his parents. As if the words they said didn't affect them that much. As if maybe they thought it was all some sort of joke that they could possibly have a boy with wings, be that what he was or not. 

It might just be a very large bird. 

Steve felt the curiosity of his youth seeping back into his skin as he asked, “Like, feathered wings?”

His mother looked at him disparagingly.

Steve’s mother was worried about him. That's what she said, but what she meant was more along the lines of ‘you’re not doing what I want you to do and that concerns me.’ 

Turns out the thing Steve was failing to do was find a wife. 

She didn't say that directly. What she said was “don’t you think you should be getting out of the house more?” and “I think you’d like coming with me into town. Meeting new people.”

Sometimes, Steve wished people- his parents, mostly- would just say what they meant. 

Steve tried to listen, he really did. But it was easy to get bogged down in the ‘concern’ and ‘failure’ and so, so easy to get distracted by the light glinting on the top edge of that golden cage. Right over the top of the rest of the aviary, rising out of the open center like a gem set in a crown. 

Steve thought about going to see the winged boy for himself. Part of him didn't think it could be true, the other part knew with assurance it was. More than anything he felt strangely drawn to the aviary. Like he was supposed to go there. But why-

“Steve, are you listening to me?” His mother only sounded a little irritated. 

“Yeah, I am.”

She sighed. She started the lecture up again. 

It really was good natured, she wasn't mad at him or anything. But still, Steve was relieved when she stopped her little sermon to speak with the head gardener by the little grove of apricot trees- she wanted them ‘company ready’.

Like anyone ever came to the house. Mostly Steve’s parents just left. 

This looked to be one of those irritatingly long conversations too, where Steve wouldn't have anything worthwhile to say for a solid ten minutes. So he stood respectably behind his mother, hands laced behind his back, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little and then trying to stop doing that, because he shouldn’t fidget so much. 

He looked around. And realized how close they were to the aviary over here. He could probably walk over if he wanted. 

Which, I mean. He did want. Which was just simple curiosity. It was stupid he wasn't allowed over there anymore anyway. He was an adult. He could do what he liked. 

So with the authority of an adult, and not at all the paranoia of a child afraid of being caught out of bounds, Steve walked over to the raised brick of the aviary. Without thinking, up the steps, just though the vaulted archway, barely crossing the threshold of the glass-and-wrought-iron building, too see the massive gold cage newly built at it’s center, and inside-

A winged boy.

He looked about Steve's age, but at the same time, much much older. Like a renaissance painting in pristine condition. Like a svelte cherub, a wax-cast statue of flesh and blood, beautiful, a warm glow about him like he had gold in his veins and blonde curls that shimmered just the same. And massive, powerful, broad, and snow white wings. Feathers perfectly inlaid one into the other like a skyscape promising rain. 

He sat at the back of the cage, shaded by the sun’s angle to the cage’s roof. He looked almost listless, head down, legs drawn in, sitting back from the sunlight. Shimmery curls fell over his eyes. 

He looked almost like Michelangelo’s David, shards missing and all. 

Steve traced the outline of the boy’s wings with his eyes, and noticed the right one opening at an odd angle. It felt…  _ wrong _ to look at, but he couldn’t look away.

That wasn't the only thing off about him, too.

He looked roughed up, plain trousers- torn in places- had been cuffed around his bare feet. Cuts and bruises dappled his exposed skin, one striking across his cheekbone.

He must be in pain.

It seemed profoundly wrong to Steve that something so beautiful should feel pain at all. 

The boy tipped his head back against the gold wire of the cage. With his throat exposed, Steve could see the bob of his Adam's apple when he swallowed. Sweat dripped down his already glistening skin.

This was wrong, this was all  _ wrong _ . 

The glass above them only magnified the heat. Nervous tweets came from the birdcages arranged around them. 

The more Steve looked, the worse the feeling got, like cement in Steve’s stomach, but he couldn't look away. 

Unil the boy moved, as if he were going to look Steve’s way, and Steve bolted from the archway of the aviary, back down the brick steps and out of sight. 

His heartbeat was painfully fast in his throat, it almost made his head hurt. 

He almost hoped the boy had seen him.

Then he could hear his mother calling him, and realized he must look like a child playing hide and seek, leaning against brick to avoid being seen.

When would he grow up?

He made his way back to his mother's side.

Steve tried not to think about the winged boy for maybe, four hours? Then he realized in trying not to think of him, it was all he was thinking about. Such is the nature of aversion. 

So thinking perhaps one can work reverse psychology on oneself, he instead thought of it actively, and found himself briefly distracted by other things. 

Only to come right back to the start. 

At dinner, the main topic of conversation was, again, the winged boy. 

And how, battered as he was, weakened as he looked, no one could get near him. 

He’d bitten one of the delivery men. Drawn blood on his hand, which was infected now. 

And if you listened to what the rest of the company was saying, going near him instilled a sharp sense of fear in everyone else, real and true. Terror like no one had felt since being a small child in a darkened bedroom. 

So they hadn't been feeding him. 

“You can’t just not feed it,” Steve’s mother was outraged. Steve hoped it was because the winged boy was a real living being. It wasn't. “We can’t have it just die on us. Do you have any idea how much that thing cost?”

But the staff were too scared to go anywhere near the boy. Near the aviary for that matter. He seemed to scare the other birds, too. That struck Steve as particularly odd. Surely there must be some sort of truce between feathered things. 

But he’d seen a murder of crows kill a hawk before. So maybe not. 

The argument went on. How were they supposed to get their money's worth if the creature just up and died?

And no one seemed at all concerned with any other aspect of the situation. Nothing to do with humanity, or, you know, maybe not human. But something-manity that this winged boy had. 

Steve just stared silently at his dinner, listened to ‘the adults’ talk it over. 

It was hard to sit there with the sour and curdled and bad taste of seeing that boy in that cage lingering on his tongue. It was hard to feel the pressure of a not-headache but something else building behind his eyes. He stood up too quickly, drawing his parents attention too much as he excused himself to turn in early. 

“At least have dessert, Steve.” His mother sounded more irritated than concerned. At least she was trying to sound concerned.

But no, thank you, he’d take dessert in his room. 

Someone would send it up. 

When Steve got up to his room, he shucked off outer layers of clothing until he was just in his undershirt and slacks, not wanting to feel the weight of the day and of ‘reality’ and ‘smart decision’ on his shoulders when he dug through a chest under his bed to pull out one of his old birding books. The fire at one end of the room hadn't yet warmed the floors, and his feet tingled against them without shoes or stockings. 

He didn't blow the dust off the book though, he just wiped it once over with the edge of his bedsheets. Which probably meant he’d be fighting sneezes while trying to sleep later, but oh, well. 

He flipped through the book, relaxing, he hadn't smelled the warm sour pages in over a year, maybe more. But every time he’d thought about throwing his chest of bird paraphernalia out over the years, he hadn't been able to do it. 

So now he was curled in bed looking for white wings. A certain kind of white wings. 

Crane was off the table. Not egret either. He considered a cockatoo for maybe two seconds. But really, more than anything else, the boy's wings looked like dove wings. Just, huge versions of them. With thick and full, perfectly aligned feathers. How smooth would they be to touch…

There was a knock at the door. 

It was the dessert Steve’s mother had insisted he get sent up. 

He slid the book under his pillows before answering the door, but he probably didn't need to. Whoever had dropped it off had already left. 

He picked the silver tray up off the ground, lifted the lid once he set it on his desk. 

A fruit tart. Shimmery with melted sugar in the twilight from his window, the strawberry in the center cut to look like a rose. 

Steve always loved the pretty desserts they got from the kitchens on weekends. But it seemed… wrong to eat this. He kept thinking about the winged boy in the gold cage. How no one could get near enough to feed him. 

Which is how Steve, absolute sentimental idiot he kept telling himself that he was, ended up staying up later than he probably should have to make the walk through the garden to the aviary, plated fruit tart on hand. 

Being outside felt like breaking a rule, which of course technically he was, he wasn't supposed to go out to the aviary, but he wasn't a kid anymore. He was, arguably, an adult. And should be able to do things without the telltale chill of  _ this isn't allowed _ crawling up his spine. But it was. 

The air hummed with subdued heat. 

He felt the backs of his shoes rubbing blisters into his stocking-less heels. But he walked to the glass structure, center of the garden, and slowly, to the cage at the open center of that. 

When he crossed the threshold, up off the grass onto the raised brick of the floor, the birds in the cages around him cooed and fluttered at his arrival. He suppressed a smile- he might have missed them if he let himself. He was tempted to break off bits of the tart crust to give to the quails, but that seemed rude. If it was a gift he should give it whole. 

Even if he was being insane, he should probably just commit to it. 

And anyway, bringing a fruit tart to a strange creature seemed like a pretty normal thing to be doing. Given the circumstances. 

If the boy were a regular bird he’d probably be doing this anyway. 

He nodded a little accidental goodbye to the birds he was standing by, that felt foolish if he thought about it too much, and walked to the open center of the aviary. 

He hadn't been able to get this close to the cage before. 

Moonlight cut through the bars in places, casting strips of cold illumination. Steve refocused his eyes enough to see the boy’s outline- sure enough he was asleep. Just as Steve hoped he’d be. 

And it had been easier to get close to the edge of the cage, he realized. He’d already set a hand on one of the lower bars, leaned closer a little. No fear stuck in the air. 

But suddenly, breathing was a balancing act. 

Partially because he didn't want to wake the boy, partially because something around him felt like clouds. Like how at altitude, in a cloud, it was harder to breathe. 

And the boy looked so… serene. Like the paintings of angels that hung in museums. A far cry from the disturbing listlessness of before. 

He was beautiful. 

Still injured, still disheveled. But beautiful. Steve moved along the edge of the cage, closer to where the boy was.

Any injury did nothing to detract from the magnetic sense Steve suddenly had that if only he could get close enough- 

The boy shifted in his sleep, his brow furrowing slightly. A pained hum. Then he was still again. 

Steve should have known better than to get this close. He had a task he’d come to do- he should just do it and go. 

And he did. 

Pushed the little china plate with it’s little fruit tart through the bars, made sure it didn’t clink too much, and took off back through the garden. Heart trying to tell him something his head was telling him to ignore. 

When the boy woke up, sunlight was just creeping up enough to illuminate the edge of the cage. 

Someone had left a fruit tart. It was the first thing he’d eaten in days. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> le coup de foudre means "struck by lightning" in french. It is used interchangeably as a colloquialism to mean "love at first sight."


	2. saucius at avem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now starting with chapter two, this fic is also a gift to my dearest FlashMountain. I think of this fic in two waves, the first being when the idea was born and the second, much after, being when it was Actually Created Well, and i must thank FM for the second wave. Simon this is for u <3

Steve thought maybe he’d done the one good deed you needed to do for like a month, and that now that he’d broken the rule once he’d feel no need to go recklessly breaking it again.

Then he realized there was a plate lying abandoned in the massive gold cage that he should probably go get just for posterity's sake. 

And then he thought if he was going down there anyway, it made sense to bring more food. 

So that night, he- again, as an adult with agency- snuck two eclairs from dinner and waited, again, in his room, going through yet more of his old birding books to stare at anatomy and bone structure and way too much latin, until the house was dark and quiet and he could sneak out into the gardens, up into the aviary to swap the plates. 

The first one had been licked clean. 

Steve was careful to be quiet- china against metal.

And he was careful not to stand staring too long at the beautiful figure sprawled on the cage floor, before stealing back up to the house. 

Steve didn’t know how long he expected to get away with his whole business of sneaking random desserts out to the winged boy. Didn’t really know where he expected it to go. But he couldn't help himself on night three. He just wanted something to  _ happen _ if he was being honest with himself. It was such a strange happening in such a normal place. 

In his normal life. 

Filled with ‘smart’ decisions. 

Because tucking a plate of chocolate cake in one arm and picking his way out into the cold grass between rose stands wasn't a smart choice- and he liked that. 

He nodded politely at the birds he passed, was careful to set down the cake plate, start reaching for the empty one, hardly even looking at the sleeping boy, when-

A gold, freckle dusted hand shot out from between the bars, grabbing Steve’s wrist. Steve gasped aloud, pulled back on instinct, but the touch- the touch was insane. Like the seconds before and after withdrawing from an electric shock- and That feeling was back, that breaking the rules feeling, as he stared at the hand with a deathgrip on his wrist pull him slightly closer. Steve looked up. 

Golden hand led to wrist to arm to- 

_ Oh.  _

The boy was awake- But ‘boy’ did not seem like the right word to describe him, it was just the closest thing Steve could even think of.

He was crouched at the edge of the cage, staring at Steve with these perfectly blue eyes, piercing, unbearably focused, like squeezing ice in your hand til it hurts. 

The boy’s grip on his wrist was unbreakable, but Steve wasn't exactly struggling against it either. He just stood perfectly still, heart racing, breathing too quick. Like being scared, but not that. Something else. 

The boy tilted his head, slowly, to the side. Like how birds did. And his eyes were so blue, like the cold parts of the sky at dawn, when the sun hasn't touched them yet. 

Steve’s skin buzzed. 

The boy parted his perfect lips and while Steve may have expected something more like a hymn, he said in this surprisingly  _ real _ voice - “Don’t be scared.”

Shock overrode every other instinct. “Holy shit, you can talk?”

The boy’s expression changed, quickly, to surprise maybe? But then to something almost condescending. “Nothing gets past you, huh.”

“I meant,” Steve realized that was probably a stupid comment. “I just, uh-”

“You’re not scared of me?”

Steve blinked rapidly. The touch was more than he could completely handle. It seemed like something that shouldn't be happening. “Not exactly.”

The boy loosened his grip slightly. Steve could pull away if he wanted. He didn't. 

“You brought me food.” It wasn't a question.

“I- yeah, I guess.” Steve felt kind of like he was being interrogated. 

“Why?”

Steve didn't know why. He just sort of did stuff sometimes. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” The boy echoed. His expression changed. He seemed almost… angry. But not at Steve. About something else. He looked away, then back at Steve.

“Tell me your name.”

“Steve.” Steve replied without thinking. Forgetting everything he’d ever heard about not giving your name away easy in case the wrong person heard it. But quickly, to even the ground: “What’s yours?”

The boy paused. Studied him. Like he was considering if Steve was worth giving his name up. 

“Billy.” He said finally.

“Really?” Steve was again, surprised. 

“That’s what I said.”

“Shouldn't it be something, like, biblical?”   
The boy - Billy - ignored that comment entirely. “Did anyone send you here?”

That question caught Steve by surprise. “No. Why?”

The vague anger was back- and maybe some of it was directed at Steve. 

“No one sent me.” Steve reaffirmed quickly. 

Billy hummed slightly. Still studying. Still… unnerving. 

Finally, he let go of Steve’s wrist. Steve had to take a half step back to balance himself. But he didn't make any move to leave- he was busy being stared at. 

Billy folded his arms around the bars, let his head rest on the inside edge of one. 

Steve realized, without the wings, Billy would probably be able to slip between the bars. 

Like they’d built the cage specifically for him. So he couldn't escape. Maybe they had. 

Billy looked away- Steve felt like he could breathe again- and cast his glance towards what Steve had brought that night.

‘What’s this?” Billy asked him, picking up the little tea plate. 

“Chocolate cake. With, uh, with raspberries.”

Billy broke off a piece with his fingers- Steve realized he should have brought the fork with him.

Steve watched Billy press the cake into his mouth with his fingers. Heard the soft smack as he pulled them away.

He made a face- shrugged. “Not as good at the tart.” Then he looked at Steve again. “Past your bedtime isn't it?”

Steve thought Billy was probably trying to get him to leave. He didn’t leave yet though, he felt like he should ask. And maybe the peace offering of various desserts was enough to go on. 

Steve took a step forward. Billy leaned back. 

“What?” He could see all of Billy’s wariness return.

“Your, uh, wing.” Steve tried to sound more confident than he was. “It looks broken.”

“So?”

“I could help, if you let me, I could-”

“ _ No.” _

“But-”

“No fucking way.” Billy backed away from the cage’s edge.    
“But I don’t want to hurt you-”

“Why in the  _ hell _ should I trust you?”   
“I brought you cake!”

“And I said thank you.” Steve felt the piece of fear knitting together in his stomach as Billy spoke. “Now fuck off and leave me alone.”

Steve did leave. Mostly because it seemed like the only thing to do. And because he felt… spurned. He’d only been trying to help. What was so wrong with that?

And honestly maybe this was better. He’d be officially discouraged from doing his frivolous bullshit, going around helping injured creatures rather than doing Grown-Up-Smart-Things. Like how his parents were leaving again that weekend to spend time in the city, and wouldn't he like to go and meet some of their people? 

But no. He wouldn’t. He’d rather stay home. But thank you, of course. 

He turned in early. Actually got undressed, got in bed, sort of half-buried himself in bedding. Like he was trying to weigh himself down, no temptation to go and see the boy- Billy. 

If there even was a stupid boy. 

But as he let a pillow fall against the side of his head, he wondered if he was just trying to hide.

Steve has a dream. 

In his dream, it’s snowing outside. At first he doesn't think that’s weird, because the weather had been so strange lately.

Snow in May. 

He’s wandering the halls, looking out of every window, watching the soft white fall from the sky. 

Bright white. 

And as he walks he realized none of the windows are frosted up. And he’s half dressed but not even particularly cold. He tries to get outside. It takes longer, he nearly gets lost, but he has to get outside, and finally when his feet trip out a side door, and he gets to where the garden is blanketed, half buried, he realizes. It’s not snow.

Its feathers. 

Impossibly soft, like down. But as he walks, footfalls silenced by the fluff, he starts to notice flight feathers scattered around too, and those aren't flung from the sky, but rather strewn about like when a housecat eats a bluejay. Like some poor bird met its maker- and there, up on the steps to the aviary, one of the perfect white feathers is stranded along its side, a bloody stub of torn skin clinging to its root- Steve feels his skin crawl- and he woke up.

Steve woke up around dawn. He felt sleep deprivation sour in his bones all day, clinging to what he remembered of his dream. Feathers. Blood. He felt dazed. Or hyper focused maybe. One or the other he couldn’t tell. He should go back to the aviary- No. God, he should  _ not _ . 

Don’t do that oh my god. 

This was even crazier than before. And if he didn't pay attention to where he was walking, he’d end up wandering off in the direction of the gardens, to the point where his father said his name very sternly mid conversation and asked him where he thought he was going. 

Steve felt his cheeks get hot. “Nowhere, sorry.”

It was too hot. Way too hot. It made it hard to think. 

_ Don’t go, don’t go, don’t _ -

He saw something white out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head. His dad had stopped to talk at the end of the hall, and the window just across the way looked out over the very gardens Steve was avoiding because of where they led. And while the feathers blanketed the garden like snow in his dream, there was only one now. 

One perfectly white feather. Caught on a bloom of Crimson Glory, no- Obsession. It looked so bright in the sunshine it almost hurt his eyes. 

Steve had never excused himself faster in his life. He was winded by the time he made it down the hall and stairs and out the door to the gardens. The brightness of being outside hurt his eyes. He tripped over his feet a little trying to figure out where from the window he had been looking, so where would-  _ there _ . 

The feather. A smaller one, but still. He knew who it belonged to. What to do with it now that he had it, though. What did it mean, anyway, just one wasn't a lot to-

Another one. Caught in the thrones of a stand of tea roses. A third, once he walked over. How fitting he could trace the feathers all the way back through the roses to the steps of the aviary. In broad daylight, though, what could he do?

Was anyone nearby? He cast about, eyes finally adjusting, but he still had to squint. The feathers stuck to the sweat of his hand. He shoved them in his pockets, more now than he had realized there were, and hopped up the stairs to duck inside the glass walls of the aviary. 

He saw the cage instantly. Saw Billy asleep on the cage floor, surrounded by his own feathers. The breath was stolen from Steve’s lungs all over again, he had to swallow hard before he could speak.

“Hey!” Steve called in a stage whisper, padding closer. “Hey, asshole, wake up.”

No response. He probably shouldn’t have cussed anyway, he just still felt a little bitter. 

He looked down to the feathers in his pockets, then back up to where Billy lay, breathing softly, serene- he looked beautiful in sleep, but it made Steve long to see him awake. 

“Billy,” Steve whispered more gently. He could reach out and touch if he wanted, and he did want. But it seemed... dangerous. 

Billy stirred slightly, then fell still again. He seemed mostly alright, but this many fallen feathers could only mean something was deeply wrong. 

Steve pulled the feathers from his pockets, piled them on the cage floor before Billy. 

“I’ll come back.” Steve whispered. “Like it or not, i will.”

Steve lied to his parents. Which he didn't care about on a moral level, but still he didn't do it often anymore, so it felt kinda weird. He said he was sick and needed to rest, even acted under the weather slightly, which wasn't too hard from the lack of sleep. His mom was deeply interested for about ten minutes, asking him if there was anything she could do until he declined enough times that she got bored. And went off to do something more interesting than being his mom. 

He didn’t exactly mind, tonight, though. Because it meant he could actually get a nap in before getting ready to go back to see Billy again. Twice in one day.

Birds tend not to trust people. Especially not the small ones. Small creatures are always aware of how easy it would be for you to squish them. But birds know that people are very different from them, with very different priorities, and only after they gain a sense that can they relate to you, trust you, will they so much as think about eating the grain you drop before them. 

There are so many exceptions to this, of course. Ducks. Geese (the bastards). Crows in some cases. Pigeons if they're raised right.

But Billy didn’t remind Steve of a duck or a pigeon or a crow. 

The only other time he’d seen feathers that white was on a dove- fancy pigeons- but he seemed more like a bird of prey to Steve.

But maybe a boy with wings had no comparison to be drawn. Maybe he was his own kind of bird, his own kind of boy. 

Maybe neither of those things. 

And it was proving difficult to get him to trust Steve. 

But Steve could remember the days when as a kid he could get the sparrows to eat out of his hands. 

So he had a fighting chance. 

Steve woke up from his nap just as twilight began. He folded up one of his thicker blankets, grabbed a couple more medical bird books, and proceeded to sneak through the entire house swiping things he thought he would need. 

Food, first of all; plums, bread and cheese. A swing-corked bottle of water. Bandages. Iodine. Scissors. A couple of his dingier kerchiefs. All of which he shoved into a bag to sling over his shoulder, books and blanket tucked under his arm as he walked with way more confidence than he expected to muster across the gardens and back up the aviary stairs. 

Billy heard him coming, was already sitting up when he walked towards the cage.

“Thought I told you to leave me alone, pretty boy.” Billy folded his arms, yet more feathers at his feet.

“You’re molting.” Steve said stopping at the cage edge to set his things down, shove them in.

“I don’t-”

“Let me help you.”

Billy looked a little taken aback at how stern Steve’s voice was. “You’re persistent-”

“ _ No _ ,” Steve kicked off his shoes to climb easier before grabbing the upper rungs of the cage’s bars. “I’m right. You’re going to let me help you.” He swung himself up against the cage edge and through the wider set bars.

To stand on the cage floor. With Billy sitting, still on the metal floor. 

“The right one, right?” Steve asked, stepping to Billy’s side, but Billy pulled back, his good wing flitting a little. 

“Hey, woah, you’re not-”

“Listen, if you’re planning on escaping at any point, you gotta let me help you. I mean, how else are you gonna  _ fly _ ?”

Billy looked slightly offended. 

“I mean, you  _ want _ to escape,” Steve tried to be less confrontational. “Right?”

It was a genuine question. Billy’s brow softened a little. “Obviously.” He mumbled.

Steve sat on the cage floor in front of him. “Let me help.” He said more gently. “Please.”

Billy’s posture relaxed. “Fine.”

Steve pulled his things over. He shoved the blanket into Billy’s hands, first and foremost, then unpacked the food. He was getting up to take another look at the wing just as Billy was reaching for the glass bottle of water. Steve should have brought a cup- Always forgetting important things.

He undid the buttons of his cuffs to roll up his sleeves, pushing hair from his eyes. He tried to ignore the nerves twisting in his chest at the idea of touching Billy again. He didn't know what this kind of panic was, and he needed to be calm for this. Steady hands. 

He crouched. Billy’s back was just as freckled as the rest of him. The wings extended from perfect braced joints at his shoulder blades. Beautiful. And mesmerizing, Steve almost forgot what he was doing, but extended a hand. 

Touched his fore and middle finger to the center of Billy’s back, just between the wings. 

His skin buzzed again. 

He couldn't have seen the shiver that passed through Billy’s body at the touch. He might have felt it, but the mind plays wicked tricks, especially in newfound intimacy. 

Steve ran his fingertips along the join of the wing up and across the arch- Billy sighed a little, Steve tried to keep focus- then a wince. 

“Here?” Steve asked. Sort of redundant, dried blood clung to feathers just along the crest where his fingertips brushed. 

“There.” 

Steve examined the break as best he could. Not the worst, but bad. Bad enough to not fly on, and shit- it had started to set wrong. 

“What do you mean set  _ wrong _ ?” Billy turned too quickly, effectively whacking Steve in the knees with his wing. 

Steve rubbed the knee that had taken the most whack. “If you had let me look at it sooner-”   
Billy gave him a look. Steve shut up. 

He grabbed the iodine from his bag. And warned Billy it would sting like a bitch, but all he heard was a sharp intake of breath. Impressive. But maybe angels were better about things like pain. 

Steve cleaned up the tear a little, squeezed the wing lightly in places around the break, then walked back around to Billy. 

“I have to set it.”

“Oh, joy.” Billy looked a little flushed from the pain- Steve assumed. 

“It’s gonna hurt again- worse. But stay quiet.”

“You have the  _ best _ bedside manner, you know?”

“Lucky I’m not a doctor then.”

“I’ll say.”

Steve was already standing back up, bandages in hand. 

“Count of three?”

“Sure, how-”

“ _ Three.” _ Steve said right away, and folded Billy’s bad wing straight against his back. 

Steve could feel the pain radiating off Billy’s skin- hot and untempered. Billy muffled a cry into his hand. 

“ _ Jesus fucking- _ ” Billy cut himself off. 

Steve tried to bandage the wing to Billy's shoulder as quickly as possible- up and down and over like a bandelier. Just to keep it straight and steady against Billy’s back. 

“Good job,” He was saying as he touched the end of the bandage in, silver scissors ever useful- but he stopped. 

He caught sight of Billy’s face. A few tears had slipped down his cheeks to drip off his chin. 

His heart squeezed, he could swear it did. What was  _ with _ this beautiful boy?

“Woah, hey,” Steve ducked his head to meet Billy’s eyes. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

Billy smiled a little, shook his head. “Don’t be. Just hurts.”

“Yeah.” Steve said, not really noting how his hand had naturally gone toward Billy’s arm. “Hey, I- I hope… I’m sorry about earlier.”

Billy wiped his nose against his hand, smiled a little begrudgingly. “Yeah, me too.”

Steve didn't really know what to say to that. He just nodded a little. Cleaned up a couple of Billy’s various scrapes. Crickets twittered in the far distance. May nights hum with life. 

“Back tomorrow?” Steve asked once he collected his things back up .

Billy just shrugged. “Like I can stop you.”

Steve stood as if to leave- but Billy grabbed his hand. 

Steve might be getting used to this but- 

Billy brought Steve’s hand closer to his own face. 

This felt liKe a hallucination again, like when he had first seen Billy, golden and dewy and made of metal and marble and strands of sunlight.

Billy pressed a kiss to the back of Steve’s hand, just past the middle knuckles. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asked breathlessly. 

Billy brought his hand back down, let Steve go. “Thanking you.” He said. Like it was obvious. 

“Oh.” The skin on Steve’s palm tingled cold with the barely-there flecks of spit left by the kiss, now hitting the air. “Uh, you’re welcome.”

Billy laughed a little. Like Steve was the one out of the ordinary. 

Steve pushed a hand over his cheek as if he could wipe the blush away. Then he left. Hopped down back out of the cage, grabbed his shoes, and started back out of the aviary. Too nervous to look back this first time. 

Steve had another dream. 

This time he was asleep on a cloud. And he could have sworn someone lay beside him in the pink and blue and white of the atmosphere. 

But he thought nothing of it once he awoke- he’d had the dream many times before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "saucius at avem" means "the wounded bird" in latin


	3. πειρασμός (peirasmós)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my girlfriend (slash editor) calls this fic "stranger wings"  
> shes the smartest person in the world

“The new addition is doing better.” Steve’s mother said to him over a breakfast they specifically requested he attend. 

“That’s,” Steve looked away, then back. “Good. Right?”

“I’m not sure-” His mother begins.    
“You shouldn't be going down there, Steve.” His father cuts her off. 

Steve scrambled to decide if he should lie or not. “I-”   
“I thought we nipped this in the bud, sweetheart,” His mother tries again. 

“He’s practically unstoppable when he gets like this,” This is turning into one of those conversations where Steve’s parents talk to each other about him, _ in front of him _ . “You haven't been-”

“Oh, this is my fault? You never take him to any events anymore!”   
“He doesn't ever involve himself, what am I supposed to do-”

Steve stared at the fried egg on his plate. The yolk had broken. He watched golden yellow bleed out onto white china.

Steve actually stopped thinking about Billy so much for a couple days. 

His parents had doubled down on him not being allowed to see the birds. Any of them at all. Ever. 

And then talked about how they wished he’d show some ambition. 

So he wasn't thinking about Billy when breakfast finally ended, and he slunk up into the library. 

He was probably supposed to read serious things. Like, philosophical works or law or whatever his father kept in his study. 

But when he felt like this he always read fairytales. 

Fairytales where great adventures happen and fearsome battles were fought and evil was always defeated and people could fall in love in a matter of days. 

He used to play Knight when he was little, go around the house with the family dog and a little wooden sword. 

His mother took the sword away when he was 12, never gave it back. 

The dog had since died. 

He read a greek myth to distract himself. 

Eros and Psyche. 

In simple terms, it goes like this:

Eros, (better known as Cupid), forever lonely, accidentally shoots himself with one of his own arrows and falls for Psyche, one of the most beautiful women on earth. 

Aphrodite, Eros’ mother, imprisons them both in a massive house, forbids Eros from showing himself to Psyche in the light of day, they may only meet in the darkness of night. 

Eros is hopelessly in love from the beginning, but Psyche must let go of vanity and pride before falling for him back. 

Eventually, Psyche gives into the temptation to look at Eros, lighting a candle to watch him as he sleeps in their bed. But her hand shakes, wax drips from the candle and burns his skin, waking him. 

And once they have seen each other, they can never be together again. 

Psyche could not resist temptation. 

Bit of a downer, really. Still worth the read. 

Steve leant his head back against the leather armchair by the fire he had chosen to curl up in. Why can’t they all have happy endings? He shouldn't have picked a greek myth anyway. 

Steve waited two entire days and nights before he saw Billy again. His parents went out for the night. And he wrestled with desire, really he did, but that never works out the way you want it to, and pretty soon he was getting more water, more food, and sneaking through the gardens again, only this time with guilt biting at his heels. 

But it all dissipated once he stepped foot inside the aviary, caught sight of Billy.

Billy didn’t get up to stand when he saw Steve coming, he just sat up more from where he’d spiraled the blanket Steve’d brought around himself- just like a nest.

“You’re back.” He said when Steve got close. Three plum pits and the bottle of water- now empty- sat at the edge of the cage. 

“I am.” Steve shrugged a little.

“I didn’t think you’d come back.” Billy looked too… genuine.

“I can’t stay.”

“Why not?”

“I just, I shouldn't-”

“Stay.”

Steve felt his pulse in his fingertips. 

Billy spoke more softly. “Please.”

Steve looked over his shoulder, as if he could see anything through the glass walls at night. 

Alright, he would stay. Just for a bit.

He kicked off his shoes, climbed up, through the bars again. Switched the old bottle of water out for a new one. Replaced plum pits with cherries and a slice of mushroom pie, the latter wrapped in wax paper.

Steve sat close enough to him that it made sense, far enough that he wasn't threatening. 

He looked 

Billy looked better already, a warm flush in his skin, brightness in his eyes- though Steve felt he shouldn't look at Billy’s eyes. It made his skin ache like a fever. And he noticed the gash on Billy’s cheekbone looked- different.

“Your cheek-” Steve reached a hand out but Billy pulled back before he could make contact. 

Steve frowned, let his hand drop. 

“Alright, so you want me to stay, but you won’t let me help?”

“I did let you help.” Billy seemed irritated. 

Steve didn't care. “But before! And like, right now! You won’t, and I don’t get  _ why- _ ”

“Because! All you people ever want is to do shit like this!” Billy gestured at the cage around them, at his lame wing. Steve could feel the change in the air around them as Billy's anger spiked. It didn’t bother him. Only made him curiouser. 

“Has…. has this happened to you before?”

Billy didn’t look up. Steve thought he heard his breath stutter. 

“I’m not like that. I wouldn’t do that.”

Still nothing. 

“I’ll get you out of this cage. I promise.”

“Why should I believe you?” Billy said more quietly. “I don’t  _ know _ you.”

“Fine. What do you want to know?” Steve volunteered.

Blly narrowed his eyes. He was quiet for a moment, then. “Why did you want to help me?”

“I already told you I don’t know-”

“I don't think that’s true. I think you do know.”

It was Steve’s turn to fall silent. He opened his mouth, closed it again. “I… There’s probably a few reasons.”

Billy rolled his hand,  _ go on. _

“Well, I guess I just, have always done stuff like that. Helped.” Steve licked his lips. “Like, when I was little I tried to heal the birds all the time.”

“And? That’s only one reason so far, pretty boy.”

Steve felt his skin feverish again. “And I guess,”  _ I'm sort of helplessly and obsessively drawn to you.  _ “You’re the most interesting thing that’s happened here, in a while. Maybe ever. I’m… alone. Most of the time.”

Billy nodded. He seemed satisfied with that. He scooted forward, closer to Steve. Their knees touched. 

He grabbed Steve’s wrist, brought Steve’s hand up to his own face, turned his head. 

Steve took that to mean he was allowed to look at the cut he'd cleaned up a couple days ago. 

Billy's skin was so  _ hot _ .

And weirdly, it seemed as if in seconds of touching it, the cut was less deep. Less dark, more knitted together. 

“You heal quick.” Steve mumbled, pushing himself up onto his knees to look at the rest of the scrapes he remembered seeing. Half of them were already almost gone. 

When he was done circling Billy, lifting his arm up to look at, tapping at the safe spots of his wing, he came back to sit before him again.

“Thanks. For, you know, letting me.”

Billy shrugged. “Whatever. It’s too quiet out here anyway.”

Steve smiled a little at that. “It’s not usually. I think the other birds are scared of you.”

He could have sworn Billy preened a little at that. “Good.”

Steve laughed. A short laugh, a conversational laugh, but still, a real one. 

Neither spoke for a moment.

“Keep talking.” Billy said playing with one end of the second blanked Steve had brought him. 

“About what?”

“Anything. Whatever you want. I’m bored.”

Steve felt maybe that wasn't the whole story, but he cast about for something to say. 

“Uh, I read a new book today.”

“What book?”

“Greek myth. It was short- Eros and Psyche.”

“Tell it to me.”

Steve was taken aback for a moment. Then he obliged. Told the story. With as much detail as he could remember. Billy listened the whole time, end of blanket twisted in his hands. 

Then he finished it. Did a little “the end.”

“That’s not how it ends.” Billy pulled a face.

“What?” Steve was taken aback. “Yes it is. In the book-”

“No, that’s how it ends in the _version_ _you_ read. But really, they found each other again. After an eternity. Aphrodite let them be together again. Then I think they like, got married and had a kid or something. But point is, that’s not the ending. Sad endings are bullshit.”

“Why’d you let me tell it to you if you knew how it went, anyway?’ 

Billy shrugged. “I like listening to you talk.”

Steve realized another reason he wanted to help Billy- rebellion. A small rebellion, to be fair, but still. It felt better, freeing, to not do as he was told for once. Made him feel less trapped.

Billy had a hard time sleeping from the pain. Steve brought him red wine. 

Billy said he had a sweet tooth. Steve brought him chocolate. 

Billy said he was bored. Steve brought him a pack of cards. 

“I know most of your card games,” Billy said one night, trying to convince Steve to stay just a bit longer, play a couple rounds of poker, using cherry pits, bit clean, as chits. 

And the more Steve saw him, the longer he stayed each night. 

The longer he stayed, the more they talked. 

First little things, small things. Then more needley, more specific. Much as Billy was the odd specimen, Steve felt like he was being studied. 

“How old is this place?” Billy asked him the next night, just as Steve had sat back down from checking his wing again.

“Uh, well,” Steve leaned back on his hands. “The estate’s been in my family for ages. Since like, 1820-something I think. But the aviary was added when my dad was a kid. My grandmother loved birds.”

“Is that why you like them?”

“Probably not. She died when I was a baby.”

“So why do you come out here then?”

“I guess I just, always liked birds. They’re pretty cool, not many things can fly. And I like how they sound.”

Steve did an imitation bird chirp.

Billy smiled; A genuine thing. “That was pretty good.”

“Thanks.” Steve smiled back without meaning to.

“So you spend a lot of time out here?’

“I used to.” Steve’s expression fell. “I uh, I don't so much anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” Steve ran through the things he could say. About his parents. About decorum. About good and smart and adult decisions. But instead he says. “I don’t know if it’s like… a good way to spend my time.”

“Who told you it wasn't?” 

Steve felt like Billy was asking questions he already knew the answers to. 

As they spent more nights and pink ends of sunrise together, Billy spoke more. It was slow going at first, mostly him interrogating Steve, getting him to hand over tidbits about his life for the company, but when Billy did get going, it was almost like he’d been dying to speak in the first place.

Billy told Steve about how things were  _ supposed _ to be a lot. Where he was supposed to be. What he was supposed to be able to do. 

And how things were supposed to go. Which meant Steve coming up with new questions to ask. 

What’s flying like? Amazing. Is it hard to hide from people? I don’t usually have to hide. Where do you live, then? Far away. 

“How did you get here?”

“I didn't come on purpose.” Billy looked a little offended at the thought.

“Accident?” Steve asked. 

Billy nodded. 

“What happened?”

Billy’s answer was short in tone and phrase. “Storm.”

Steve sat up from where he’d been lying on his back on the cage floor. “Like from a few nights ago?”

Billy nodded.

“I remember that storm!”   
Billy looked sideways at Steve.

“It, uh,” Steve tried to dial back his excitement. “It blew open my window. Weird weather for May.”

“Your window, like, in your bedroom?”

Steve flattened his hands against the cage floor, felt the cool metal press into his palms. “Yeah.”

Billy hummed slightly, but said nothing more on the matter.

Billy’s wing was healing much faster than Steve expected it to. But after only a week he dared not unwrap it. And no more feathers had fallen, which could only be a good sign.

“Can I ask you something else?” Steve looked over at where Billy was lying on his stomach with a pillow Steve had brought him propped under his arms and chest. Feathers spilled out over his back, the tips of his wings bent slightly where they couldn't lay flat on the ground beside him. Steve couldn't help but bring him bedding. The makeshift bed had gained weight and comfort- Steve wondered if Billy would let him sit in it sometimes. Other times he was glad for the distance between them, for his own sake and sanity.

“I wonder what you’d do if I said no.” Billy smiled a little.

“You, uh,” Steve started, not at all distracted. “You asked me before if I was afraid of you. Why?”

“Why did I ask you that or why should you be afraid?”

“The first one.”

Billy shrugged. “I was surprised. You’re supposed to be.”

“Supposed to be?”

“Yeah. It’s like. In the  _ rules _ or whatever.” Billy plucked at the end of the pillow. “I guess there’s a couple exceptions.”

Billy looked back, saw Steve's curious expression. Sighed.

“Alright, uh,” Billy relaxed his fiddling hands. “You  _ should be _ afraid, but you might not be if you were like, born on leap day, or, got some sort of blessing as a child, or were like, “pure of heart,’ or something like that.”

Billy put air quotes around the last thing. 

“What does that mean? Pure of heart.”

“It’s like newborn babies and shit.” Billy’s answers were getting clipped, like Steve shouldn't keep asking him things. “Like the maidens that can approach unicorns.”

“Unicorns aren't real.” Steve felt like maybe Billy was messing with him. 

“Yeah, well.” Billy picked his cup back up. “Neither are  _ winged boys. _ ”

Steve read about angels one night. In one of the pieces of scripture analysis in the library. It was impossible to read, boring as shit, written in tiny text on too-thin pages but at least he tried. It all sounded so... clinical. Not at all like Billy. Billy, like paint dripping off a canvas, bits of sun clinging to him like sand, voice like raw pulled honey, still dark and flecked with wax. 

And every time Billy touched him- little bit of lightning driven under his skin, to buzz restlessly in his bones- scripture had nothing about temptation and worship and whether or not they two weren't just different kinds of wanting. For Steve was convinced this was sacred, this way he felt about the winged boy in his golden cage and his cocky smile and harsh brow. 

If he could want, and was wanted, then he must so too be absolved. 

Steve took a bath one night. One of those scaldingly hot ones that makes you get introspective about nothing as you watch your skin turn color. Mostly he took showers because they were quicker. But he still liked baths. And since he always felt slightly cold, he made them as hot as possible. He watched the steam curl of the surface of the bath slowly fade away, watched his skin turn pink close to red as time passed. Felt his fingers pruning. He was having a hard time relaxing out of the thick of his thoughts like he normally did. He stared down through the water at his hands. 

It occurred to Steve, the singular, disturbing thought, that he could keep Billy here if he wanted. And immediately, of course, he knew he would never. Steve wasn't that kind of person, he would never take freedom away from someone else like that. 

But he could. 

He could lie to Billy, maybe. Make up reasons or excuses for him to stay. He could simply never open the cage. It wasn't like he even had a key...

He wouldn’t do that though. It just made him sad to realize his only surefire way of getting someone to stay and care, was keeping them in a cage. 

He closed his eyes, held his breath, slid just under the surface of the bathwater for a bit. 

Not even the stillness below the water could stop his thoughts. 

The only thing that ever got him to stop thinking, to stop spinning out on his own bullshit was being around Billy. 

He knew what being alone was like, he knew what being lonely was like, and he hadn’t minded it before, but now that he had something  _ better _ , he didn't want to go back. 

“...You ok?”

Steve looked up. His head was in Billy’s lap. “Yeah, I uh- Sorry, yeah, I’m fine.”

“Anybody ever tell you you’re a bad liar?” Billy smiled, ran a hand through Steve’s hair. 

“Yeah.”’ Steve laughed a little. “They have.”

Billy leaned back, put his hands on his knees. “What’s up.”

“Since when do you wanna talk about how I feel.”

“Since right now. Don’t wait till I change my mind, pretty boy.”

Steve hummed a laugh again. “I just uh… I’m just lonely. Lot of time by myself or with people who I’m not really, uh, close with. Get me down sometimes.”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “Not a lot of friends?”

“Try  _ no _ friends” Steve smiled bitterly. Then realized he’d probably snapped a bit. “Sorry, I-’   
“I don’t care.” Billy shrugged. There was a pause, then. “I get how you feel.”

“Well, I mean, you’re in a cage.” Steve smiled a little more normally.

“You know, if you hadn't reminded me just now? I would have straight up forgot.” 

Steve really did laugh.

Steve figured there was probably a reason he was so lonely. The possible reasons ranged in severity. 

Like maybe he was just bad at making friends- but that wasn't true, he was excellent at talking to people, making conversation, being charming. It just never got beyond small talk. 

So maybe he was just bad at letting people in- but why wouldn't he be? So many people had lost interest so fast…

Then maybe, you know, there was a reason people lost interest. Maybe he just wasn't, you know, worth it. 

Not bad. 

Just not good enough. 

Billy spoke again. “You don’t deserve to be lonely.”

Billy got closer in proximity to Steve over time. Like how if you sit still long enough, birds won't perceive you as a threat anymore. They’ll get closer and closer, first in catching distance, then in feeding, and if you're lucky they'll perch on your shoulders, or the top of your head. 

Billy had begun to inch closer to Steve, the more time they spent reading, talking, playing cards, drinking wine. 

Passing time between beginning and end. 

Until one night as they spoke, Billy leaned his head on Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve stayed perfectly still, other than to speak and breathe. It was hard though, hard not to press the side of his hand into Billy’s, hard not to flinch when feathers brushed against his neck and back. Birds smell different depending on where they're from, but they all have this sort of dustiness to them. Billy’s must have been stardust. 

Steve stayed so late one night he fell asleep. 

He was closer than Billy had ever let him be to the next of pillows and blankets, leaning against it, leaning into Billy, and after hours of talking and only minutes of silence he was out like a light. 

Nearly three weeks of little to no sleep to sneak around helping a fallen angel will do that to you.

He wasn't asleep for very long or anything, maybe twenty minutes, but it was how he woke up that stuck with him. 

He could feel the weight of Billy’s arm around his waist, hand resting against his stomach, fingers slid under the buttons of his shirt, brushing his skin. He could feel Billy’s breathing, his chest as it rose and fell. And he could feel fingertips tracing the line of his jaw. That was what had woken him- the gentle, methodical movement. 

Steve didn't open his eyes for a moment, instead, just leaned into the touch.

And excitement and fear in equal parts crashed through his brain like breakwater- the kind of sacred temptation he felt, could he himself be sacred to Billy?

Steve opened his eyes, saw dawn making the sky blush, and sat up. 

“I should go.” Steve pushed his hair from his eyes, voice still muting a little on the tightness of sleep in his chest.

Billy just nodded, letting his hand slide from it’s place on Steve’s stomach. 

Steve missed the contact as soon as he lost it. He wondered, as he snuck back up through the garden, how his legs could carry him away. 

Steve had committed every cryptic thing Billy would tell him to memory by now. Every superstition, every arbitrary comment. 

Until he had one thing left to ask. 

Something he was almost afraid to, for the attachment it held in his heart. 

Steve remembered how crushed he’d felt when he’d found out the tooth fairy wasn't real. Same for Santa, and the Easter bunny.

But he’d always sort of hoped angels were real. Maybe he just liked to think someone- anyone- cared about him enough to watch over, however infrequently. 

So he asked.

“Are you an angel?” Steve whispered one night, head in Billy’s lap. The moon was only half dark.

Billy smiled. “What do you think?”

“I think yeah.” Steve said, tongue too loose from all the wine, not even sure if the joke would land in his head. “I think you’re a guardian angel.  _ My _ guardian angel. Sent here to like, protect me and whatever. Make sure I have what I need.”

Billy laughed. “Yeah ok sure. Kinda bad at my job though, if I am.”

“Nah.” Steve reaches a hand up, twists his finger in one of Billy's curls. “I think you’re good at it.”

Before Steve left that night, just as he had dropped back down out of the cage, onto the ground, Billy reached for his hand again, reminiscent of the way he’d grabbed Steve’s wrist at their first encounter, but much gentler this time. Steve turned around, let Billy keep holding his hand. Then let himself be pulled closer. 

Billy bent, between the bars, and very quickly, pressed a kiss to Steve’s temple. 

“Why’d you do that?” Steve asked when he’d been let go.

“Making sure you have what you need.”

Four weeks of sneaking food out to the gardens, hiding from his parents whenever they were in town, being bolder and stealing things like pillows from the drawing room when they were out of town, beringing all sorts of knick knacks and making all kinds of conversation, and Billy’s wing was almost fully healed. 

They both knew he’d have to build his strength back up a little before he could really escape. And they’d talked about when and how they’d break him out, Steve without a key, volunteering bolt cutters, Billy needing a jumping off point, perhaps Steve’s high up bedroom window. 

Steve brought scissors down from his father’s office to cut the bandages away with- he shoved them in his pocket pointy end down in his haste, poked a hole in the seam. 

But he made it out to Billy okay, and his parents would be gone again by the time they had guessed Billy would be able to fly again. 

They greeted each other with far more familiar enthusiasm, Steve already swinging up into the cage, scissors in hand to cut the bandage carefully, so as to not cut feathers. 

And as he went about carefully unwrapping the wing, testing Billy’s pain with deft, gentle presses, he couldn't help but think of how strange, and how wonderful the whole thing had been. The thing of the past few weeks. 

To think about it in the past tense already made his blood turn to ice, the first bad feverishness in a while. 

It felt just like reading a good book- so caught up you don't realize you’re nearing the end before it’s too late. 

Steve pulled the last of the bandages away, let them pool, uncoiled on the cage floor. 

He put a hand between Billy’s wings on his upper back, feeling rapture replace anxiety.

Not enough had happened for this to be the end! He couldn't bear to think it.

Maybe in hysteria, maybe simply in exchange, Steve bent his head, pressed a kiss to the perfectly crafted shoulder. Then another, to just above the join of the wing. Two for two.

Billy turned his head to look across at space, his brow furrowed, and Steve feared the worst before Billy said:

“You did it back.”

Billy covered Steve’s hands with his own, where they still layed splayed on perfect, golden skin.

Steve pulled back for Billy to stretch his wings out, watched as Billy stood with a focused expression, testing his one range of movement. 

The sloping, soft and magnificent white wings were even more powerful than Steve had imagined. 

He’d be able to fly again. Soon.

Steve brought strawberries to be pecked at by the scrub jays one afternoon. They screeched so unpleasantly, he gritted his teeth when he got close. But they cooled off after a couple minutes. Enjoyed the strawberries.

He wrote a letter to his parents with all the regular nothing in its contents. 

He read more than he had in a long while. 

He did more things he enjoyed, felt more alive in his own skin, and every night, without fail, sought Billy’s company. 

And every night Billy’s wing got stronger, and he got closer to being able to fly again.

Happiness about the wing grew as if leading to celebration, and not departure. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> πειρασμός (peirasmós) means "temptation" in greek


	4. ברכה (bracha)

When Steve ran out into the rain one Sunday evening, he did it thoughtlessly. 

At many points in his life, Steve would be criticized for his thoughtlessness, his instinct and impulse above all else. But I think there was really, for him, no other choice to make. 

It had been near rain all day, concerning Steve enough to recall how birds dislike rain, how people stuck in cages might too. 

The ophelia roses dipped under the weight of fat raindrops. Their color made brighter and duller in places. 

Steve almost slipped in the mud, was soaked through when he got to the cage.

“Billy?” Steve grabbed the bars, both hands, pulled up on his toes to look in. 

Billy looked… fine. Cold, maybe, but otherwise fine. Playing cards again, solitaire, both wings folded to accommodate a blanket piled around him. 

Steve felt foolish immediately.

“What are you doing out here?” Billy stood when he saw him, walked over, shying away from the slippery edge of the cage floor. 

“I, uh, the birds. Get scared sometimes when it rains so I thought…” Steve trailed off. 

He could have sworn Billy smiled. “Not a bird, pretty boy.”

“Yeah- I know.” Steve hoped he didn’t sound too defensive. But he did. Billy’s smile widened.

“I’m ok.” Billy crouched next to the bars between them, let his feet get wet. “I mean, I’m cold. But I’m ok.”

Steve nodded. “That’s, uh, that’s good.”

Billy studied him for a moment before he spoke. “Hey, is anyone home?” he tilted his chin in the direction of the house.

“No one is but the skeleton staff. Why?”

Billy reached out a hand. “Come up.”

Steve obliged, took his hand. 

But now he was ready for the electricity when it came. 

“You look tired.” Billy told him.

“Yeah,” Steve laughed a little. “Well, you know.”

“You should sleep.”

“I just got here.”

“I know.” Billy pulled Steve closer. “Sleep here again.”

Steve didn’t know he was allowed to acknowledge when he’d fallen asleep here a few nights ago.

“I, uh, I just-” Steve tried desperately to keep his eyes up, level with Billy’s, but maybe that was worse, because Billy took one of his hands and didn’t break his gaze away. A smile played on his lips.

“Please.”

“I-” Steve had never wanted anything more in his entire life. “I don’t have any dry clothes-”

“That’s fine.” Billy hooked fingers under the edge of Steve’s trouser’s pulling him closer. 

Steve’s voice caught in his throat. He looked down, lips parted, at a loss for words as Billy undid Steve’s belt, undid the fastenings of his trousers, carefully pulling the fabric of Steve’s shirt ends up and away from his waistline as he did, the trouser’s falling easily to the ground. Steve felt that same unknowable tingling sensation at every point that Billy touched his skin, ever aware that with each button of his shirt that Billy undid, he was seconds closer to being completely naked in front of a literal angel, and to have himself laid absolutely bare, wasn't that a sin? 

Billy must have heard Steve’s breath hitch, though, because he paused before letting the damp fabric drop, looked up. 

“You ok?” Billy asked, his expression changed not at all.

“Yeah,” Steve managed to nod. 

Billy went back to undoing the buttons on Steve’s shirt until the white fabric had been completely parted in a line down his chest, and with no earthly regard to modesty, Billy peeled the still-wet fabric from Steve’s arms and shoulders until he held the entirety of Steve’s day-dress in his hands. Billy didn’t behave in any altered way at seeing Steve naked, and Steve wondered if Billy maintained the perspective of the Edenites. 

So ancient and sacred, as if something like being stark naked could be either or both of those things. 

“Get in bed.” Billy said, siding a hand across Steve's shoulder as Steve struggled for words, the touch sending a ripple effect of the most soothing drowsiness through his body. 

The feather tip of one of his wings brushed across Steve’s wrist as Billy moved past him to set his clothes down, to strip out of his own linen trousers. 

Steve did as he was told, halfway collapsing to sit on Billy’s little nest of fine linen. He was freezing for a split second, then Billy was at his side in the near dark that was getting darker, and he was warm again. 

Steve wondered if maybe it wasn't Billy’s fault he was tired, if Billy had only meant to calm him, and in being calm he’d realized how endlessly tired he was. 

_ You should really take care of yourself more _ \- Billy looked so lovely uninterrupted by things as irrelevant as clothes -  _ or let yourself be taken care of.  _

Steve felt the sheets shift, the warmth of Billy’s body, and then, one of Billy’s lithe and perfect arms sliding across his stomach, up to his chest. Everything was warm, Steve wondered how Billy could have been cold here in this make-shift bed before, like the sleepy warmth of childhood naps. Suddenly there was an urge to cry, deep within Steve’s throat. Too many thoughts and feelings clamored for his attention, off guard and exhausted and elated and aroused and so deeply loved but there it was again he kept forgetting to name it and with any idea of what he was in the exchange of, only the sense that it must be an inexplicably good thing, he raised his hand to touch Billy’s. Billy laced their fingers together on Steve’s chest. 

Their legs tangled easily. Naturally. 

How had Steve ever laid in a bed without Billy at his side?

“You should sleep.” Billy whispered to him, lifting himself up to lean over Steve a little and press a kiss to his forehead. 

A drawn out thing, from beginning to end, with hesitant breath against Steve’s skin before a close-eyed long, indulgent kiss, just to drag his lip a little at the end. 

Steve opened his eyes once more to see Billy’s wings spilling white and perfect over the end of the nest of blankets. Steve idly touched the smooth feathers with the back of his knuckles. 

Billy gave a small shudder. 

Rain hit the glass roof of the aviary above them. 

Steve didn’t remember falling asleep.

Sometimes you don’t need to name things. Like to name the feeling of when your body first hits water after jumping off a high rock- you can’t boil it down to one word. 

Sometimes you can’t name things. Sometimes there is no way to describe things, like falling asleep. How would you begin to put words to that?

Sometimes, you forget to name things. 

I can tell you in all sincerity, if you  _ told _ Steve he was falling in love, he might have realized it.

But no one was there to tell him. 

So he simply forgot to ever name the feeling. 

One night, as the first fireflies of the season found their way into the garden, Steve had brought Billy a book of poetry he’d found left out in the drawing room. He was always tempted to ask how Billy kenw how to do things like read, but he’d probably only get a look in response. He just watched Billy read, looking up at him, his head in Billy’s lap, feeling Billy idly stroke his hair as he read, only ever lifting his hand away to turn a page. 

What was this fairytale?

“Can I ask you something?” Steve let his words break the stillness. 

Billy looked from the book, to him. “Sure.”

“Are you going to go home?” Steve looked at his hands, fiddling with a loose button on his shirt. “When your wing’s better, I mean. Is that where you want to go?”

“I have to.”

“Can’t you come back?”   
“It doesn't work like that.” An achingly long pause. “But I wish it did.”

Steve closed his eyes, held still when he said the next bit. “I’ll miss you.”

“Nah, you won’t.” Billy said, like he’d miss Steve just as bad.

The less days there were, the quicker they turned to night.

As long as no prying eye of the sun could see them, Steve never left Billy's side. 

And for every night of the last week, he managed to not wish for anything as foolish as more time, time he could see like gold, taste like wine, touch like electricity under skin. 

There is never more or less time.

On Billy’s last night on earth, Steve lifted bolt cutters from the tool shed. He showed up with them in hand, just heavy enough to be annoying. 

Billy was waiting for him at the cage’s edge. 

They didn’t talk at first, they’d discussed sneaking Billy out the night before, Steve still was worried by the loud snap the lock gave when it was cut from the cage. 

Steve hopped down from his place on the stairs, broken lock in hand, before shoving the thing in his pocket and turning back. 

Billy pushed the cage door open. It didn't creak at all, it was so new. Steve watched him as he stepped down onto the little gold stairs, his wings following him, their magnificence restored. He shook his shoulders, sighed, like confinement had been the foul air he breathed. 

He stepped down to Steve’s level, smiled. 

Steve smiled back. 

But god was it melancholy- to miss something you were moments away from losing, trying to convince yourself heartbeats were hours. 

Steve took Billy’s hand to guide him.

Steve snuck Billy up through the gardens, into the house through the doors of the tile patio, and up the many flights of stairs. But it wasn't really sneaking so much as it was as a stroll, lovers taking a turn midday, boys padding down hallways in the middle night. 

Steve would look at Billy here and there, watching Billy as he examined his surroundings, the thick carpets on hardwood or stone. The tall paintings. Taller windows. He slid his hand across every banister, tapped fingers against door frames.

Steve’s room really was one of the highest up in the house, the elevated window overlooking the far end of the drive, only grass and gravel and a fountain before the road just went onward. 

He pulled the massive window open, the clicks of the fastens louder in the silence. 

He stepped back, looked at Billy. Billy didn’t move.

“So are you, you gonna go?”

“I can’t yet.”

Steve was confused. “Why?”

“I, ‘owe you a debt’” Billy told him, said the words like he was quoting scripture. “For helping me.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to give me anything-”

“No,” Billy shook his head. “You gave me something. You helped me. Hour of need and all that. We need to be even before I can leave.”

“I-” Steve felt his throat catch. “I don’t, need anything-”

Billy smiled a little, teasing, as if he was surprised Steve still didn't understand. “But what do you  _ want _ ?”

What  _ did _ Steve want? 

This? This memory, of a boy with wings who struck matches against your heart, to be all yours? 

Or do you want more than a memory? To have a feeling and never name it. For you know you cannot have both.

“I…” Steve felt the sweet air of Billy’s breath on his tongue. “… what can I ask for?” 

So maybe he doesn't dare ask. 

“Anything.”

Steve looked up from Billy’s mouth, cherubic as ever and wide and bold, to his eyes, exposed crystal, like clothes soaked through. “Anything?”

Billy nodded. 

Steve’s hands wandered to touch either side of Billy's jaw. “Can… can I...”

Billy’s hand rose to cover one of Steve’s. “Anything.” he repeated. 

Steve tilted his head, held Billy's steady. He let his eyes close as he leaned in. 

He wasn't sure what kissing an angel would be like, maybe it wasn't even allowed. Maybe he’d get struck down by the same bolt of lightning that had cracked over the grounds all those nights ago, by the grace of god or whatever was up there. 

Instead, he got kissed back. Easily parted lips, ready to catch against his, ready to taste, ready to press forward, feel more, more like too much. 

Like Steve thought maybe he’d turned to glass, but already shattered, in pieces, glittering in Billy’s grasp. 

Ethereal and wonderful and-

“Can you stay?” Steve pulled back to ask, a thin thread of spit connecting them still like a dewy spider’s web. “Just- just until sunrise.”

Billy was quick to nod, already trying to lean forward again. “I can do that.”

When Steve was a little kid, he often thought about what it would be like to touch a cloud. He wasn't really of those kids too keen on flying, could be fun, but mostly he’d just want to be able to get high enough to alight on a cloud, feel its cushiony coolness below his feet, feel his skin warmed by the sun.

He tried not to be devastated when he’d been told clouds were not actually touchable, but just damp recollections of nothing substantial. A trick of the light, really. 

But quite literally tumbling onto his bed, pulling Billy in after him, this was what he thought that would be like. Steve felt the mattress give at Billy's weight, the weight of his wings. Billy dropped down to sit straddling Steve’s lap, Steve felt crushed in a way that meant being put back together, security hummed in Steve’s throat even as desire took his hands, outstretched. He felt his head pulled up to meet every kiss that Billy offered from above. 

The dying fire left the room warm, his disheveled sheets were smooth and soft, just the way he’d hoped clouds would be. There was even an angel, an angel of a boy grabbing at his shirt, pressing his hands to Steve’s skin to drag with the pads of his fingertips. 

Steve hadn't really let go of Billy’s head, hands at his neck, cupping his jaw, keeping Billy’s face close to his, close enough that he could kiss over and over and over near relentlessly, leave him breathless and jittery for the tingling buzz that threatened to split his bones. Billy tasted so good, and like nothing at all, rose petals against skin, water on a hot day, honey on a cut. Steve’s eyes were closed, but when Billy pulled away from his mouth to kiss across his jaw, lick up behind his ear in a way that sent a full body shiver twitching through Steve’s body, Steve opened his eyes. 

The room was so dark, he could hardly see anything at all, and that was so endlessly comforting, that sunrise was still far away, that there was nothing to be seen, only things to feel, only Billy to feel, to touch, to cling to, raking his hands back through Billy’s hair, up the side of his ribs, feeling muscle and bone and heartbeat and feather. The edge of Billy's wing grazed Steve’s hand, but Billy gasped at the touch, the sound just against the shell of Steve’s ear. 

Without thinking any further, Steve ran his hand over the crested ridge of Billy’s wing, drawing yet more cosmically appreciative sounds from Billy, as it was Steve’s turn to grab at him, kiss absently and desperately any piece of skin he could reach, kisses too wet, residual dripping down his chin when he’d pull away like he trying to dig himself into Billy's gold and warm way of being. 

Steve felt Billy’s hands seeking their way lower, and much as he hated to, tore away in a flash of guilt.

“Wait-” Steve could hardly breathe for wanting to stop talking and just feel again.“We can’t. It’s- this has to be like a sin or something”

“What? No.” Billy looked taken aback. The fire glowed softly behind him.

“Stuff like this, it’s supposed to be bad.” Steve felt common reasoning deteriorate in the face of felt truth.

Billy ran his hand down Steve’s face, temple to jaw, as if he could “How could this be bad?”

No amount of sex on earth could have prepared Steve for what Billy wanted to give him. This was something beyond that, something more than that. Even as Billy pulled off his clothes, left more skin to touch, to feel, to taste, this wasn't that. It was like being underwater, feeling everything all around, or like being asleep, feeling a dream swath your brain. Just the same as when Steve had fallen asleep in the cage a few nights ago, it was as if Billy only wanted to touch him, as if he knew how desperate Steve was to be touched. To not be lonely. 

Steve wanted the kiss, wanted all the others after that. Wanted the push and the pull and the touch. The all consuming feeling of Billy all around him, nothing unfamiliar, no movement not done in tandem. Steve stopped having thoughts all together, just feelings, and relief washed over his body even before the end of it. He got to know Billy in his ethereal entirety. Got to be known as he was- rough hewn and diamandic- back. 

He had everything he wanted- To not be so lonely.

Which he wasn't, for all the hours until sunrise, even asleep, tangled with his winged boy. 

Steve woke up just a little at movement by his side. He rolled onto his side more to grab the feeling back, to grab Billy back as he shifted away. In the haze of exhaustion it seemed fundamentally  _ wrong _ that Billy should leave his side.

“Billy-” Steve felt sleep heavy in his body. 

“Sh, don’t get up.” Steve didn't like how unhappy Billy sounded, even as he was calm.

“But, you’re leaving.” Steve felt his brain kick in a little more, his breathing go unsteady.

“I have to.” Billy soothed his thumb over Steve’s cheek. 

_ I don’t want to. _

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I don’t know.” Steve was too groggy to see Billy fighting tears. “But I hope so.”

Dawn broke over the sea right at that moment. But neither boy saw it. Each looking at the other. 

Billy bent his head to press a kiss to Steve’s lips. 

Always gotta make the last one count. 

“Go back to sleep.” Billy whispered when he pulled away. 

Do you, dear reader, know what it’s like to feel your lover leave your bed in the early morning? It is the most inescapable heartbreak, for you are too tired to drag them back. 

So Steve was asleep before Billy even rose from their bed. 

He didn't see Billy alight the windowsill, didn't see his wings spread out and brace before he jumped. 

Didn't see Billy look over his shoulder at Steve, asleep in the soft light of dawn, before Billy took off. 

When Steve woke up, he was already crying. Not sobbing, not like, shaking or anything, just tears. Tears streaming down his face as if he’d been filled up with salt water and it was just spilling over naturally. 

He didn't understand it. 

His sheets were shifted in a way he didn’t recognize - he didn't understand that either. 

Heartbreak echoed under his skin. 

He closed his eyes, trying to feel something, taste something, remember something, but whatever was making him feel like this was just beyond his reach. He felt like he’d been dreaming. 

But something important had been happening. Something had been biding, only to topple- no, not topple. Just reach completion. 

Something had ended. 

What was it?

Steve had woken up from a dream of being in love before, found himself alone. This was like that. 

He got out of bed. 

White down feathers littered his floor. 

Maybe his bedding had torn. 

The sun had risen an hour ago, but no one was awake yet. 

How odd. 

And he had to pull on clothes he’d left scattered around his bed.

Steve’s bare feet carried him across the wood and stone of the floors of the manor, out onto the brink of the patio, into the dew-drencing grass. 

It was warmer though. 

This May had been so cold. 

He walked to the aviary and- god when was the last time he’d been in the aviary? 

But all the birds seemed to expect him. 

And he must have been out of his mind, barely awake, still crying soundless, motionless tears, wiping them on his shirt sleeve, as he went, methodically, cage by cage, and opened the doors. 

To every cage. Not looking back as birds flocked into the hall, flittering around, took off out the doors, as chaos ensued, he just walked around until every cage door was open. And any bird that wanted to stay, he was sure, would. And the others would end up where they were supposed to be. 

He walked out the center of the aviary. 

A massive gold cage stood there, with the door already open. 

Steve sank to his knees at the foot of the little gold steps up to the cage. 

It was empty.

The crying made it harder to breathe. 

He wondered what had been in the cage.

He couldn't remember any of it with perfect clarity. Weeks later he would assume it had been a dream, when it came back in pieces.

Because he had nothing to go by. 

Other than the thick white flight feather he found later on his bedside table- too big for any dove. 

And a vague impression of a kiss. 

Kisses can do any number of wonderful things. Their last kiss was no exception. 

It was the culmination of a great romance.

It was the necessary farewell.

It was the next and last step to be made. 

And, like all things holy creatures do, it had a blessing attached to it.

If you really love someone, you don’t just want them, you want them to have what's best for them. Whatever it is that they want. Billy wanted that for Steve. 

He might have selfishly ruined him for the mortal world, driving him mad with pieces of divinity, all as collateral for more than a kiss, but he didn’t want that. 

He wanted love for Steve, the companionship he so terribly desired. 

He didn't want to leave him alone.    
He never wanted Steve to be lonely. 

After months of a sort of heartbroken haze, Steve reemerged with a sense of purpose he didn’t fully understand, and late spring nights he couldn’t fully remember. But never again was he lonely, for soon after he met a girl who loved birds as much as he did, who loved well decorated and sensible houses and staying up too late and wine and cheese and him. A girl who loved him as much as he loved her. 

Steve will propose to this girl at one a.m. on a warm May night, and she’ll tearfully accept, and they’ll go off and be married and buy a house and have children and live happily ever after, with each their own wonderful senses of purpose and happiness and contentment and never again would Steve Harrington be lonely.

Steve’s nearest recollection of loneliness will be a story he half remembers about a boy with wings who smelled like seawater and roses and tasted like wine. 

But times change, and things like tales of winged boys fall out of fashion. 

Steve will tell this story enough times to enough people that the details will confuse themselves. He’ll tell it to himself so many times it will start to wear out. When he tells his soon to be wife, one evening under the stars in The City, she’ll laugh and say it's a beautiful fairytale, and he’ll love her too much to correct her. When he tells his children they’ll say they always loved his bedtime stories. 

When his grandchildren become adults, they’ll whsiper to each other that he’s probably just going senile. 

Maybe the cage wasn't so grand. 

Maybe the storm wasn't so earth-shattering.

Maybe it was just a very large bird. 

Not a boy at all. 

But that’s not how this story ends. If you will recall wise words, dear reader, sad endings are bullshit. 

In this story, one stormy night, many many years later, Steve Harrington will fall asleep in his bed and he will wake up not in his room with the memory of his wife asleep next to him, but alone, aching joints and grey hair forgotten. 

He is nineteen again. Dressed in the garments of his youth, he sits up to find himself on the cool brick floor of his parent’s aviary. Where, if he recalls correctly, a cage should be. And isn't. There are no birds. They have all been set free. 

Steve rises, walks to the glass archway, steps down, out into the bright sunlight of a May morning- and there, among the long overgrown roses, he sees a boy. A boy with the wings of a dove. 

Warmth seeps into Steve’s bones as Billy turns to smile at him, wings, smile, eyes, all just as he remembers.

“Ready to go, pretty boy?” He calls, but Steve is already running towards him, tackling him into a hug. White feathers brush Steve’s wrists as he wraps his arms around Billy’s shoulders. Billy holds him equally tight around the waist. Steve could swear they lift off the grassy ground, just a little. Billy's skin is as warm as the sunlight that bathes the gardens. 

“Yeah.” Steve leans his head into the crook of Billy’s neck, says his next words to Billy’s chest, just above his heart. “I’m ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ברכה (bracha) means "blessing" or "gift" in hebrew- the language the bible is written in


End file.
